Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed

by Will Storr

or white? – or whatever. You then merge these and form in-groups. You start to develop prejudices and biases. You become pre-occupied with what others think about you. Your sense of self worth is a reflection of what you think other people think about you. As you spend more and more time with other children, you start to develop hierarchies.’ With these hierarchies comes our obsessional concern with status. ‘We constantly seek validation. Why do we buy the fast cars? Why do we own the big yachts? Why do we need all these things that we don’t really need? It’s because we’re signalling to others our self-status.’ If others believe we’re fancy and great, our looking-glass self interprets that as evidence that we are fancy and great. We’re self-conscious. We use clues from out there to tell us who we are in here. And that, until the end of our days, is pretty much how it goes.